Community Tutorials

Run an Elixir Phoenix app in containers using Google Kubernetes Engine

Author(s): @dazuma , Published: 2019-07-22

This tutorial helps you get started deploying your Elixir app using the Phoenix Framework to Google Kubernetes Engine, Google's hosting solution for containerized applications. Google Kubernetes Engine is based on the popular open-source Kubernetes system, and leverages Google's deep expertise with container-based deployments.

You will create a new Phoenix application, and then you will learn how to:

Connect your app to a database running in Cloud SQL
Create an OTP release for your app using Distillery
Wrap your app release in a Docker image
Deploy your app on Google Kubernetes Engine
Scale and update your app using Kubernetes

This tutorial requires Elixir 1.5 and Phoenix 1.4 or later. It assumes you are already familiar with basic Phoenix web development. It also requires the PostgreSQL database to be installed on your local development workstation.

This tutorial was updated in January 2019 to cover Phoenix 1.4, Distillery 2.0, and connecting Ecto to a Cloud SQL database. It was updated in July 2019 to cover changes in Elixir 1.9 and Distillery 2.1.

Before you begin

Before running this tutorial, you must set up a Google Cloud Platform project, and you need to have Docker, PostgreSQL, and the Google Cloud SDK installed.

Create a project that will host your Phoenix application. You can also reuse an existing project.

Use the Google Cloud Platform Console to create a new GCP project. Remember the project ID; you will need it later. Later commands in this tutorial will use ${PROJECT_ID} as a substitution, so you might consider setting the PROJECT_ID environment variable in your shell.
Enable billing for your project.
In the Cloud Console, enable the following APIs:

Perform the installations:

Install Docker 17.05 or later if you do not already have it. Find instructions on the Docker website.
Install the Google Cloud SDK if you do not already have it. Make sure you initialize the SDK and set the default project to the new project you created.

Version 227.0.0 or later of the SDK is required. If you have an earlier version installed, you may upgrade it by running:
```
gcloud components update
```
Install the Kubernetes component of the Google Cloud SDK:
```
gcloud components install kubectl
```
Install Elixir 1.9 or later if you do not already have it. If you are on macOS and have Homebrew, you can run:
```
brew install elixir
```
Otherwise consult the Elixir install guide for your operating system.

Install the hex, rebar, and phx_new archives:

mix local.hex
mix local.rebar
mix archive.install hex phx_new 1.4.9

Install Node.js if you do not already have it. If you are on macOS and have Homebrew, you can run:
```
brew install node
```
Otherwise consult the Node download guide for your operating system.
Install PostgreSQL if you do not already have it. Consult the PostgreSQL downloads page for information on downloading and installing PostgreSQL for your operating system.

Create a new app and run it locally

In this section, you will create a new Phoenix app with a database, and make sure it runs locally in development. If you already have an app to deploy, you may use it instead.

Create a new Phoenix app

Run the phx.new task to create a new Phoenix project called hello:
```
mix phx.new hello
```
Answer Y when the tool asks you if you want to fetch and install dependencies.
Go into the directory with the new application:
```
cd hello
```
Update the development database settings in config/dev.exs to specify a valid database user and credentials. You may also update the database name. The resulting configuration may look something like this:
```
# Configure your database
config :hello, Hello.Repo,
    username: "my_name",
    password: "XXXXXXXX",
    database: "hello_dev",
    hostname: "localhost",
    pool_size: 10
```
Create the development database with the following command:
```
mix ecto.create
```
Run the app with the following command:
```
mix phx.server
```
This compiles your server and runs it on port 4000.
Visit http://localhost:4000 to see the Phoenix welcome screen running locally on your workstation.

Create and test a development database

Next you will populate a simple development database and verify that your Phoenix app can access it.

Create a simple schema:

mix phx.gen.schema User users name:string email:string

Migrate your development database:
```
mix ecto.migrate
```
Add some very simple code to show that the application can access the database, by querying for the number of user records. Open lib/hello_web/controllers/page_controller.ex and rewrite the index function as follows:
```
def index(conn, _params) do
    count = Hello.Repo.aggregate(Hello.User, :count, :id)
    conn
    |> assign(:count, count)
    |> render("index.html")
end
```
You can also display the value of @count by adding it to the template lib/hello_web/templates/page/index.html.eex.
Recompile and run the app:
```
mix phx.server
```
Visit http://localhost:4000 to verify that your new code is running. You can log into your database and add new rows, and reload the page to verify that the count has changed.

For more information on using Ecto to access a SQL database, see the Phoenix Ecto guide.

Create a production database in Cloud SQL

In this section, you will create your production database using Cloud SQL, a fully-managed database service providing PostgreSQL and MySQL in the cloud. If you already have a database hosted elsewhere, you may skip this section, but you may need to ensure your production configuration is set up to connect to your database.

Before you begin this section, make sure you have enabled billing and the needed APIs in your cloud project. You should also set the default project for your gcloud SDK if you have not already done so:

gcloud config set project ${PROJECT_ID}

Create a Cloud SQL instance

First you will create a new database in the cloud.

Create a Cloud SQL instance named hellodb with a Postgres database by running the following command:
```
gcloud sql instances create hellodb --region=us-central1 \
    --database-version=POSTGRES_9_6 --tier=db-g1-small
```
You may choose a region other than us-central1 if there is one closer to your location.
Get the connection name for your Cloud SQL instance by running the following command:
```
gcloud sql instances describe hellodb
```
In the output, look for the connection name in the connectionName field. The connection name has this format: [PROJECT-ID]:[COMPUTE-ZONE]:hellodb We will refer to the connection name as [CONNECTION-NAME] throughout this tutorial.
Secure your new database instance by setting a password on the default postgres user:
```
gcloud sql users set-password postgres \
    --instance=hellodb --prompt-for-password
```
When prompted, enter a password for the database.

Connect to your Cloud SQL instance

In this section you will learn how to connect to your Cloud SQL instance from your local workstation. Generally, you will not need to do this often, but it is useful for the initial creation and migration of your database, as well as for creating ad hoc database connections for maintenance.

By default, Cloud SQL instances are secured: to connect using the standard psql tool, you must whitelist your IP address. This security measure can make it challenging to establish ad hoc database connections. So, Cloud SQL provides a command line tool called the Cloud SQL Proxy. This tool communicates with your database instance over a secure API, using your Cloud SDK credentials, and opens a local endpoint (such as a Unix socket) that psql can connect to.

To set up Cloud SQL Proxy, perform the following steps:

Install Cloud SQL Proxy. Make sure that cloud_sql_proxy is executable and is available in your environment's PATH.
Create a directory /tmp/cloudsql. This is where the Cloud SQL Proxy will create database connection sockets. You may put this in a different location, but if you do, you will need to update some of the commands below accordingly.
```
mkdir -p /tmp/cloudsql
```
Start the proxy, telling it to open sockets in the directory you created:
```
cloud_sql_proxy -dir=/tmp/cloudsql
```
Note: This runs the proxy in the foreground, so subsequent commands need to be run in a separate shell. If you prefer, feel free to background the process instead.
The proxy will open a socket in the directory /tmp/cloudsql/[CONNECTION-NAME]/. You can point psql to that socket to connect to the database instance. Test this now:
```
psql -h /tmp/cloudsql/[CONNECTION-NAME] -U postgres
```

You can learn more about using the Cloud SQL Proxy to connect to your instance from the documentation.

Create and migrate the production database

Next you will configure your Phoenix app to point to your production database instance, and tell Ecto to create and migrate the database.

Start the Cloud SQL Proxy, if it is not already running from the previous section. Remember that this runs in the foreground by default.
```
cloud_sql_proxy -dir=/tmp/cloudsql
```
Configure your production database configuration to communicate with the sockets opened by the running Cloud SQL Proxy. Edit the config/prod.secret.exs file to include something like this:
```
# Configure your database
config :hello, Hello.Repo,
    username: "postgres",
    password: "XXXXXXXX",
    database: "hello_prod",
    socket_dir: "/tmp/cloudsql/[CONNECTION-NAME]",
    pool_size: 15
```
Remember to replace [CONNECTION-NAME] with your database's connection name, and include the password you set for the "postgres" user.
Hard-code secret_key_base in config/prod.secret.exs. (If you're doing a real application, you might want to create a different mechanism to inject the database password and the secret key base into this file, but we will keep things simple for this tutorial.)
Now you can use Phoenix to create and migrate your production database:
```
MIX_ENV=prod mix ecto.create
MIX_ENV=prod mix ecto.migrate
```
Stop the Cloud SQL Proxy when you are finished.

Enabling releases

Releases are the Elixir community's preferred way to package Elixir (and Erlang) applications for deployment. You will configure your app to create deployable releases.

Note: You can also use the Distillery tool to create releases for your app. Distillery's configuration mechanism is somewhat different from that provided by Elixir's built-in releases, so if you choose to use Distillery, be sure to adjust these steps accordingly.

Configure releases

Initialize release configuration by running:
```
mix release.init
```
This will create a rel directory containing several configuration files and templates. You can examine and edit these if if you wish, but the defaults should be sufficient for this tutorial.

If you are using Distillery 2.1 or later, the corresponding command is mix distillery.init.
Configure releases in your mix.exs project configuration.

Add a releases section to the project function. For now, it should look like this:
```
def project do
  [
    app: :hello,
    # Add this section...
    releases: [
      hello: [
        include_erts: true,
        include_executables_for: [:unix],
        applications: [
          runtime_tools: :permanent
        ]
      ]
    ],
    version: "0.0.1",
    # additional fields...
  ]
end
```
If you are using Distillery, this information will appear in the file rel/config.exs instead. The defaults created by Distillery should be sufficient. In particular, make sure include_erts is set to true because the Elixir Runtime assumes ERTS is included in releases.
Prepare the Phoenix configuration for deployment by editing the prod config file config/prod.exs. In particular, set server: true to ensure the web server starts when the supervision tree is initialized, and set the port to honor the PORT environment variable. We recommend the following settings to start off:
```
config :hello, HelloWeb.Endpoint,
    load_from_system_env: true,
    http: [port: {:system, "PORT"}],
    check_origin: false,
    server: true,
    root: ".",
    cache_static_manifest: "priv/static/cache_manifest.json"
```
Alternatively, if you are using Elixir 1.9 or later, you can provide this information in the runtime configuration file config/releases.exs.

Test a release

Now you can create a release to test out your configuration.

Build and digest the application assets for production:
```
cd assets
npm install
./node_modules/webpack/bin/webpack.js --mode production
cd ..
mix phx.digest
```
Remember that if your app is an umbrella app, the assets directory might be located in one of the apps subdirectories.
Build the release:
```
MIX_ENV=prod mix release hello
```
Start the Cloud SQL Proxy so that Phoenix can connect to your database. Remember that this runs in the foreground by default.
```
cloud_sql_proxy -dir=/tmp/cloudsql
```

Run the application from the release using:

PORT=8080 _build/prod/rel/hello/bin/hello start

Visit http://localhost:8080 to see the Phoenix welcome screen running locally from your release.
Stop the Cloud SQL Proxy and the application when you are finished.

Dockerizing your application

The next step is to produce a Docker image that builds and runs your application in a Docker container. You will define this image using a Dockerfile.

Various considerations go into designing a good Docker image. The Dockerfile used by this tutorial builds a release and runs it with Alpine Linux. If you are experienced with Docker, you can customize your image.

Create a file called Dockerfile in your hello directory. Copy the following content into it. Alternately, you can download a sample annotated Dockerfile to study and customize.

FROM elixir:alpine
ARG app_name=hello
ARG phoenix_subdir=.
ARG build_env=prod
ENV MIX_ENV=${build_env} TERM=xterm
WORKDIR /opt/app
RUN apk update \
    && apk --no-cache --update add nodejs nodejs-npm \
    && mix local.rebar --force \
    && mix local.hex --force
COPY . .
RUN mix do deps.get, compile
RUN cd ${phoenix_subdir}/assets \
    && npm install \
    && ./node_modules/webpack/bin/webpack.js --mode production \
    && cd .. \
    && mix phx.digest
RUN mix release ${app_name} \
    && mv _build/${build_env}/rel/${app_name} /opt/release \
    && mv /opt/release/bin/${app_name} /opt/release/bin/start_server
FROM alpine:latest
ARG project_id
RUN apk update \
    && apk --no-cache --update add bash ca-certificates openssl-dev \
    && mkdir -p /usr/local/bin \
    && wget https://dl.google.com/cloudsql/cloud_sql_proxy.linux.amd64 \
        -O /usr/local/bin/cloud_sql_proxy \
    && chmod +x /usr/local/bin/cloud_sql_proxy \
    && mkdir -p /tmp/cloudsql
ENV PORT=8080 GCLOUD_PROJECT_ID=${project_id} REPLACE_OS_VARS=true
EXPOSE ${PORT}
WORKDIR /opt/app
COPY --from=0 /opt/release .
CMD (/usr/local/bin/cloud_sql_proxy \
      -projects=${GCLOUD_PROJECT_ID} -dir=/tmp/cloudsql &); \
    exec /opt/app/bin/start_server start

Note that there is a required argument called project_id, so if you build this image locally, you must provide a value via --build-arg.

If you are using Distillery instead of Elixir's built-in releases, you will need to modify the mix release command appropriately, and use the foreground command rather than the start command.

If your app is named something other than hello, you must modify the app_name argument in the Dockerfile. If your app is an umbrella app, you will also need to modify the phoenix_subdir argument to contain the path to the Phoenix application subdirectory, e.g. apps/hello_web.

Create a file called .dockerignore in your hello directory. Copy the following content into it. Alternately, you can download a sample annotated file to study and customize.
```
/_build/
/assets/node_modules/
/deps/
/doc/
/priv/static/
/test/
/tmp/
```
Note: if your app is an umbrella app, you might need to adjust the paths to include the build, deps, and node_modules directories of the constituent apps. In general, you want Docker to ignore artifacts that come from your development environment, so it can perform clean builds.
Create a file called .gcloudignore in your hello directory. Copy the following single line into it:
```
#!include:.dockerignore
```
This file controls which files are ignored by Google Cloud Build. If you do not provide it, gcloud will ignore everything in your .gitignore by default. That would cause your config/prod.secret.exs to be omitted, which would cause the build to fail. By specifying this line, you instruct gcloud to use the contents of your .dockerignore file instead.

Deploying your application

Now you're ready to deploy your application to Google Kubernetes Engine!

Build the production image

To deploy the app, you will use the Google Cloud Build service to build your Docker image in the cloud and store the resulting Docker image in the Google Cloud Container Registry.

Create a file called cloudbuild.yaml in your hello directory. Copy the following content into it. Alternately, you can download a sample annotated file to study and customize.
```
steps:
- name: "gcr.io/cloud-builders/docker"
  args: ["build", "-t", "gcr.io/$PROJECT_ID/hello:$_TAG",
       "--build-arg", "project_id=$PROJECT_ID", "."]
images: ["gcr.io/$PROJECT_ID/hello:$_TAG"]
```
The cloudbuild.yaml file specifies how to perform a build. You can find more information on the structure and syntax of a build configuration in the documentation.

For your app, the build procedure simply performs a docker build. Note that it passes the value $PROJECT_ID for the required project_id argument in your Dockerfile. $PROJECT_ID is a standard substitution provided by Cloud Build. You'll notice there is also a $_TAG substitution; you must provide its value when you run a build, as shown below.
Execute the following command to run the build:
```
gcloud builds submit --substitutions=_TAG=v1 .
```
The period at the end is required. It indicates that the build should be performed using the files in the current hello application directory.

Note that you provide the value v1 for the _TAG substitution. The build configuration uses this value as the docker image tag for the docker image being built.

After the build finishes, the image gcr.io/${PROJECT_ID}/hello:v1 will be available. You can list the images you have built in your project using:

gcloud container images list

You can even push and pull the image directly from your registry. See the Container Registry how-to guides for more details.

Create a cluster

Google Kubernetes Engine lets you create Kubernetes clusters to host your application. These are clusters of VMs in the cloud, managed by a Kubernetes server.

Choose a cluster name. For the rest of these instructions, I'll assume that name is "hello-cluster".
Choose a zone. You should choose a zone that makes sense for you, such as us-central1-a. It is a good idea to select a zone in the same region where your database is located.
Create the cluster:
```
gcloud container clusters create hello-cluster --num-nodes=2 \
    --zone=us-central1-a --scopes=gke-default,sql-admin
```
This command creates a cluster of two machines. You can choose a different size, but two is a good starting point. It is also important to include the sql-admin scope so that VMs in your cluster can talk to Cloud SQL.

It might take several minutes for the cluster to be created. You can check the cloud console at http://cloud.google.com/console, under the Kubernetes Engine section, to see that your cluster is running. You will also be able to see the individual running VMs under the Compute Engine section.

Note that once the cluster is running, you will be charged for VM usage.
Configure the gcloud command-line tool to use your cluster by default, so you don't have to specify it every time for the remaining gcloud commands:
```
gcloud container clusters get-credentials --zone=us-central1-a hello-cluster
gcloud config set container/cluster hello-cluster
```
Replace the cluster name and zone if you used different values.

Deploy to the cluster

A production deployment comprises two parts: your Docker container, and a front-end load balancer (which also provides a public IP address.)

We'll assume that you built the image to gcr.io/${PROJECT_ID}/hello:v1 and you've created the Kubernetes cluster as described above.

Create a deployment:
```
kubectl run hello-web --image=gcr.io/${PROJECT_ID}/hello:v1 --port 8080
```
This runs your image on a Kubernetes pod, which is the deployable unit in Kubernetes. The pod opens port 8080, which is the port your Phoenix application is listening on.
Check that your pod is running.

View the running pods using:
```
kubectl get pods
```
Once the status changes to Running, your pod is ready.

If the status changes to CrashLoopBackoff, something is wrong. You could try examining the logs by running the following, substituting the pod name.
```
kubectl logs {POD-NAME}
```
(As of mid-2019, you might encounter dlsym: Resource temporarily unavailable which happens because the Elixir Alpine image is not compatible with the latest Alpine Linux. Fix this by editing your Dockerfile, changing the second stage from FROM alpine:latest to FROM alpine:3.9.)
Expose the application by creating a load balancer pointing at your pod:
```
kubectl expose deployment hello-web \
    --type=LoadBalancer --port 80 --target-port 8080
```
This creates a service resource pointing at your running pod. It listens on the standard HTTP port 80, and proxies back to your pod on port 8080.
Obtain the IP address of the service by running:
```
kubectl get service
```
Initially, the external IP field will be pending while Google Kubernetes Engine procures an IP address for you. If you rerun the kubectl get service command repeatedly, eventually the IP address will appear. You can then point your browser at that URL to view the running application.

Congratulations! Your application is now up and running!

Scaling and updating your application

You'll now explore a few of the basic features of Kubernetes for managing your running app.

Set the replica count

Initially your deployment runs a single instance of your application. You can add more replicas using the kubectl scale command. For example, to add two additional replicas (for a total of three), run:

kubectl scale deployment hello-web --replicas=3

Once the additional replicas are running, you can see the list of three pods by running:

kubectl get pods

Kubernetes automatically allocates your running pods on the virtual machines in your cluster. You can configure pods in your deployment with specific resource requirements such as memory and CPU. See the Kubernetes documentation for more details.

Update your application

After you make a change to your app, redeploying is just a matter of building a new image and pointing your deployment to it.

Make a change to the app. (For example, modify the front page template.)
Perform a new build with a new version tag "v2":
```
gcloud builds submit --substitutions=_TAG=v2 .
```
Now you have two builds stored in your project, hello:v1 and hello:v2. In general it's good practice to set the image tag for each build to a unique build number. This will let you identify and deploy any build, making updates and rollbacks easy.
Set the deployment to use the new image:
```
kubectl set image deployment/hello-web hello-web=gcr.io/${PROJECT_ID}/hello:v2
```
This performs a rolling update of all the running pods.
You can roll back to the earlier build by calling kubectl set image again, specifying the earlier build tag:
```
kubectl set image deployment/hello-web hello-web=gcr.io/${PROJECT_ID}/hello:v1
```

Note: If a deployment gets stuck because an error in the image prevents it from starting successfuly, you can recover by undoing the rollout. See the Kubernetes deployment documentation for more info.

Clean up

After you've finished this tutorial, you can clean up the resources you created on Google Cloud Platform so you won't be billed for them in the future. To clean up the resources, you can delete the individual resources used, or delete the entire project.

Deleting individual resources

To delete your app from Google Kubernetes Engine, you must remove both the load balancer and the Google Kubernetes Engine cluster.

Delete the service, which deallocates the load balancer:
```
kubectl delete service hello-web
```
The load balancer will be deleted asynchronously. Wait for that process to complete by monitoring the output of:
```
gcloud compute forwarding-rules list
```
The forwarding rule will disappear when the load balancer is deleted.
Delete the cluster, which deletes the resources used by the cluster, including virtual machines, disks, and network resources:
```
gcloud container clusters delete --zone=us-central1-a hello-cluster
```
Be sure to specify the same zone you used to create the cluster.

Finally, delete the Cloud SQL instance, which will delete all databases it hosts.

gcloud sql instances delete hellodb

Deleting the project

Alternately, you can delete the project in its entirety. To do so using the gcloud tool, run:

gcloud projects delete ${PROJECT_ID}

where ${PROJECT_ID} is your Google Cloud Platform project ID.

Warning: Deleting a project has the following consequences:

If you used an existing project, you'll also delete any other work you've done in the project. You can't reuse the project ID of a deleted project. If you created a custom project ID that you plan to use in the future, you should delete the resources inside the project instead. This ensures that URLs that use the project ID, such as an appspot.com URL, remain available.

Next steps

The Elixir Samples repository contains a growing set of sample Elixir applications ready to deploy to Google Cloud and examples of communicating with Google APIs from Elixir.

See this guide to learn about more options for connecting to Cloud SQL from Google Kubernetes Engine, including using a Private IP address or a container sidecar.

If you want to procure a static IP address and connect your domain name, you might find this tutorial helpful.

See the Google Kubernetes Engine documentation for more information on managing Google Kubernetes Engine clusters.

See the Kubernetes documentation for more information on managing your application deployment using Kubernetes.

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